The Hill I Will Die On: ‘Mean Girls’ Is Not A Good Movie
The Hill I Will Die On is a regular Junkee series in which we air our pettiest gripes. It should, of course, not be taken very seriously.
What I’m about to say may come across as traitorous to not only my gender, but my generation.
I don’t think Mean Girls is a good movie. I’m sorry.
Now don’t get me wrong, I really don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum– I realise that a lot of people love this film. Like, really love it. And by God, you’re totally allowed to! The Beastie Boys fought for your right to party, and I assume, by extension, love teen films. My antipathy to Mean Girls should not take away from your love for it– but I can’t live a lie anymore.
I can’t continue to pretend to be impressed or excited that “I know the reference!” when people dress up as “a mouse, duh” for Halloween or joke about wearing pink on Wednesdays. I feel no comradery with those who try to make fetch happen, or don’t make it happen– I really couldn’t care less.
Social media feeds October 3rd are full of gifs of Lindsey Lohan telling a guy that it is, indeed, October 3rd. Oh, it’s October 3rd? Beautiful, my latest AfterPay payment is due. Wait, this date was mentioned in a movie once? Amazing! I’m very impressed that the Mean Girls’ universe uses the Gregorian calendar.
This movie has become so entrenched in our popular vernacular that any reference to it is exhaustingly mundane. Using Mean Girls references to appear relatable or hip with the kids is moot; people use them so often and with such voracity that they lose all effectiveness and punch. Basically, if any turn of phrase is famous enough to make it on a Cotton On t-shirt, it’s over. Shut it down.
Miss Me With That Nostalgia
Mean Girls came out in 2004 when I was in year five. I was a bit of a late bloomer, and when I did see it for the first time two years later, everything went right over my head. In all honesty, my prime Mean Girls Enjoyment Years were spoiled by my persistent need to experiment with my whole personality.
Internalised misogyny (which has since been wholly exorcised from my pink and glittery soul) and a total lack of understanding about who I was meant to be in my teen years meant that I rejected all things that deep down, I probably would have enjoyed much.
I had absolutely no interest in teen movies, believing my 14-year old self to be, I don’t know, too into Indiana Jones to watch Bring it On—because of course, it can only be one or the other, for the sake of consistent branding. I was trying too hard to enjoy My Chemical Romance that I completely missed the cultural phenomenon that was High School Musical. Just my luck too, that My Chemical Romance was a complete non-starter and bummed me out too much.
Maybe if I actually paid any attention to Mean Girls, I would have found something to identify with in the messages, but my tiny cynical soul had trouble believing that Rachel McAdams was a high schooler and that was enough to shatter any suspension of belief I needed to enjoy the movie.
Alas, the craze completely swept by me, and I was too busy trying on about three different personalities a week to even wave as it went by. Now I am just a jagged 25-year old, utterly void of the warmth of nostalgia that like, all of my peers possess.
Mean Girls: Your Problematic Fave
Have you watched it recently? It has not aged well. It was a movie strictly of its time, and even then, it tenuously holds onto its Girl Power message. Tina Fey wrote the film, and as much as I love Tina Fey, she’s basically your older aunt that you love because she used to sneak you cookies when you were a kid but also she never got the memo about not using slurs. In short, Tina Fey is the patron saint of White Feminism.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I understand there is a supremely delicate balance between being complicit in problematic media and understanding the historical context in which a piece of media was made. I totally understand the power nostalgia holds over people and movies they hold dear. I know how terrible Love, Actually is. I watch it every Christmas with my family. Hopefully, a few Baileys in so I don’t cringe so hard I turn myself inside out. But I still watch it. Sometimes it’s nice just to enjoy a film that sets feminism back about 5 years so you can have a nice cry at the end with your mum and dad when Hugh Grant muses that love, actually is, all around.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the soft tinge of nostalgia to distract me from how problematic Mean Girls can be. The central message of girls needing to support each other and fighting girl hate is a great one and one that is so desperately needed for teenagers. But in the case of Fey’s “lean in” brand of feminism, it basically ends there.
As Fey says in a pivotal scene: “you have to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores,” the issue of girl hate is angled directly as a behavioural issue for girls—not a symptom of problems with the patriarchy.
Mean Girls is like Feminism Lite; it opens the floor for talking about these problems, without doing much to break new ground. And I’m not a screenwriter or anything, but I feel like the central messages of the movie can be dealt with in a way that doesn’t rely on stereotypes of teenage girls, people of colour, or LGBTI people.
If You Don’t Like Mean Girls, You’ll Lose Friends And Die
Owning such a controversial opinion has been hard. Disliking a universally beloved film makes me feel like such a Grinch – I don’t want to be a Grinch! But please, for the love of GOD, I don’t care that you wear pink on Wednesdays.
The other week I tweeted my thoughts and was met with such a swift and terrifying response. Turns out people do actually see my tweets, and my hot teen flick takes are not in line with the zeitgeist—I lost several dear friends in about three minutes:
Nicole you’ve attacked me personally now
Our friendship is over I’m sorry pic.twitter.com/iBNDV1g9oo
— facundo is trying (@Reelax1_) November 2, 2018
what
WHAT
nicole we can’t be friends i’m sorry
— Liam Esler (@liamesler) November 2, 2018
Most responses have been people quoting the movie at me, which, I don’t know if you understand, will not work on me:
Me: hey what would y’all say if someone told you they didn’t like mean girls. Hypothetically. For science. (It’s me I’m the person)
Friend 1: I’d grab them and make them watch it while yelling IM A PUSHER
Friend 2: [Just sent a screenshot of them listening to the Mean Girls Musical soundtrack, which, ok, go off]
Friend 3: I’d just push them in front of a bus to suffer the same fate as Regina George
Others have looked at me as if I just kidnapped their first born and promised to return it once they have learned my true name. Needless to say, people feel very strongly about this movie.
To all I have hurt, I am sorry. I realise this movie is important to people, and while I totally missed the fan train to Mean Girlsville, I have accepted that I live in a world where a Chihuahua munching on a lady’s fake nipple is funny, for some reason. But hey, we’ll always have Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.
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Nicole Archer is a fan of weird history, spooks, and video games. She can do everything a toddler does but better. Tweet her at @nicolearcher.